L’oreal Infallible Eyeshadow in Golden Emerald | Review & Swatches

After an entire semester of guerilla daytime shooting, I finally broke down yesterday and started taking my product photos at night again. Sunshine is a great source of free lighting in a pinch, but I just can’t deal with it (typically, it took me almost half the year to figure this out). There are bloggers who are total pros at taking the daylight shot, but I am not one of them. See below:

Currently, I have no lightbox and no backdrop, and that’s ok. All I need is a single source of semi-controllable light and I can see every single edge on this packaging clearly you guys. But enough about my new lighting setup! Today’s review is all about one of my favorite drugstore products, the much-hyped L’oreal Infallible eyeshadow.

If you’re a longtime reader of my blog, you might remember my review of this formula in Sahara Treasure. While the Infallible formula tends to be hit or miss, (most of) the shimmers are incredibly smooth and pigmented. I’ve found they apply best with fingers instead of a brush, and have good staying power worn alone or over primer.

Golden Emerald is one of the gems of the line. Its formula is similar to Sahara Treasure, with even greater intensity in color. The shade is an olive green shot through with about thirty pounds of gold, pale green, and emerald shimmer. I’ve shot the swatches below in varied lighting to show both the cool base and the warmer ‘top coat’ of shimmer.

Applying it over primer (right) brings out the base color, while applying it on bare skin brings out the shimmers (left). Personally, I prefer wearing this one sans primer.

Because this shade is so intense, I would advise against wearing it as a lid wash (my preferred method with Sahara Treasure). I appreciate pigmented eyeshadows as much as the next person, but find they do require certain application techniques. I’ll go over how I like to wear Golden Emerald in a separate post, but do let me know if you have any tips and tricks.

Finally, a quick note about the packaging. Each eyeshadow comes with a stopper that reads, “Do not discard.” Don’t discard it. I say this only because I almost threw it away the first time in my excitement over the shiny pretty eyeshadow beneath, but the stopper helps keep the formula from turning into a crumbly powder.

Golden Emerald is a welcome addition to my arsenal of green eyeshadows. I love its complex color and butter-smooth formula. While I wouldn’t call it ‘easy to work with’ due to its high pigmentation and borderline-glittery finish, it’s unique enough to warrant a little extra effort.

These can retail anywhere from $7-10, depending on where you buy them. I’d suggest purchasing them at Target, if you can, since I’ve found they’re often the cheapest there. I got mine for the bargain buy price of $4.99 after using this $2 off coupon. Get it while you can!

ohh yeah that one’s nice! I thought about getting it, but I have similar shades in my collection, and at this point I’m trying to be more careful about dupes. Totally forgot about the Pantone thing when I bought this, tbh I’m not entirely sold on the whole ‘color of the year’ thing, but I do like green 🙂 You should get this!

I have this, too!! I love the color, but I’ve had issues getting it to apply as pretty as it looks in the pot. I’ll have to try finger application. I agree that it’s not the best as an all-over shade; I wanted to do a really green smoky eye, but had a devil of a time getting it to be even and opaque, but I’ve used it in the crease with some success. I look forward to seeing how you wear it!

I actually do use this all over the lid sometimes…I think you need a good flat eye brush, like the RT base shadow brush. It’s longer and flatter so it’s kind of like using your finger. Don’t overblend, too! But it’s a gorgeous color, and actually, since you also have Sahara Treasure – wear them together! ST all over the lid, this in the center or in the crease 😉

hmm I might try using a brush like that, thanks for the tip! And I definitely agree, these were not made to be overblended. I’ll try pairing this with ST next time I wear it, sounds like a gorgeous combo 🙂

Great job on the photos first of all! I would love to take some courses myself, I very much enjoy it. Also loving this shade, I have a deep purple although I havnt given it much of a chance yet. It’s definitely a product I would like to further explore!

I love green because I think it’s the easiest non-neutral shade to wear. Admittedly, this one’s a very intense shade of green, but I think you should give it a try! I do that blog browsing thing all the time too, but it usually only makes my lemmings worse 😛

PRETTY! I’m thinking of picking up the green Canadian version of this shade (forget the name) – but they look the same or very very similar. But I need to work with the greens I already own in various palettes…. >_<

Ah, I love this one!
I like to apply it to my lid, and blend up into the crease a bit. Then apply a matte taupe/beige color to the crease and windshield wipe a bit. Pop on a pretty golden highlight, and in good to go!

I have a pretty decent sized collection of these babies, so it’s hard to choose a fave. I probably wear amber rush the most though, I LOVE that color as a wash!

I do not have this shade…yet…but it is on my list! I have this weird thing where I refuse to buy drugstore makeup unless it’s on sale – but then pay full (hugely inflated) prices for Chanel and the like. WTF.